Hitler's bodyguard unit, called the Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler Division. They were all over 6' tall. But many never saw combat, choosing instead to throw away their pretty black uniforms at the end of the war and flee the advancing Russians. Many were captured wearing Wehrmacht uniforms, trying to blend in with millions of other German prisoners. So much for 'Death Before Dishonor'.

A grubby American G.I. takes a well-deserved drink from his newly-aquired German 'Bierstein'.

Waffen SS Major Joachim Peiper. During the Battle of the Bulge during Christmas of 1944, his troops murdered 84 unarmed American prisoners. These Americans were all found with gunshot woulnds to the head fired at close range. Several also had their skulls smashed in by German rifle butts. For a short time after that, US troops were ordered to 'take no prisoners' when fighting SS units. Peiper was tried as a war criminal after the war, and spent 11 years in prison. After his release, he worked for Porche, then Volkswagen, before moving to France. In 1976, he was killed by French Communists and/or former French Resistance fighters, who burned down his house with him in it

Female SS concentration camp guards. They were so vicious that several were hanged for war crimes after the war ended. What ugly people.

Japanese Kamikaze ('Divine Wind') suicide pilots in 1944. Each one carries a Samurai sword, and a piece of linen inscribed with best wishes from his family members worn wrapped around his waist, underneath his flight suit.

Japanese Kamikaze pilots in 1945. They will not be coming back.

Photo taken by a US Navy gunner showing a burning Kamikaze in its final approach. This one is an older 'Judy' model of fighter-bomber, and was flown by Lt. Yoshinori Yamaguchi, and hit the aircraft carrier USS Essex seconds later. Though Yamaguchi was killed, the Essex did not sink. This occurred off the coast of Okinawa, Japan, in 1944.

Another amazing photo of an unknown Kamikaze pilot seconds before his 'Zero' fighter (upper left of photo) slams into the USS Lexingtin in 1945

The flight deck of the USS Bunker Hill is ablaze after a successful Kamikaze strike, 1945.

American GIs execute SS guards at Dachau concentration camp, 1945.

Japanese 'Zero' fighter-bomber taking off from the aircraft carrier Akagi to attack Pearl Harbor, 1941

African-American soldiers relax after heavy fighting against German troops in France, 1944. Their goggles mark them as armored infantrymen, most likely part of the 781st Tank Battalion ('Black Panthers'), part of Gen. Pattons Third Army.

Last photo of Hitler before he kills himself in 1945. He encouraged these boys to 'die for Germany' while he himself took the easy way out the following day.

US Marine recruiting poster, WWII

Actual US Marines recover aboard ship after a bloody attack against dug-in Japanese forces, 1944. They don't look much like the poster, but they're the real deal.

Dead Japanese soldier killed by Marines on Iwo Jima, 1945. This photo appeared in Life Magazine.

Two Americans freed from a Japanese concentration camp in San Thomas, the Philippines, in 1944.

Two Stuka dive bombers of the German Luftwaffe begin their diving attack on an Allied supply column in North Africa, 1942.

Torpedoed Japanese destroyer (note 'Rising Sun' symbol painted atop the gun turret) as seen from the periscope of the American submarine USS Wahoo, 1943.

Pope Pius XII during one of his several dinners with Hitler. The pope never denounced the Holocaust, saying that anti-Nazi doctrines are 'not in conflict with Catholic teachings' (1942). The current Pope Benedict is pushing to have Pius declared a saint.

Pope Benedict XVI as 17 year old Josef Ratzinger, a member of the Hitler Youth. The Nazi eagle insignia on his uniform is the Luftwaffe varient; the Luftwaffe used Hitler Youth to man anti-aircraft ('flak') guns that shot down US and British bombers

Picture from an SS Einsatzgruppen soldier’s personal album, labelled on the back as 'Last Jew of Vinnitsa', it shows a member of Einsatzgruppe D is about to shoot a Jewish man kneeling before a filled mass grave in Vinnitsa, Ukraine, in 1941. All 28,000 Jews from Vinnitsa and its surrounding areas were massacred at the time. This is what the current president of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, says 'never happened'.

More of what 'never happened': a member of an SS death squad (Einsatzgruppen) prepoares to murder a woman and her child somewhere in the Ukraine, 1941.